I have a AMD FX-8150 CPU, and 16GB of ram. And despite the bad press, I am having good results with BD. It's not the latest Core i7, but it also didn't cost me $1k.

But in switching back to Gentoo from Arch (hard-wipe)....I see the USE flags have only gotten more complex. (not a complaint, just an observation)

I'll do the research on the technicalities, so rather than read a ton of stuff ahead of time, I just want to ask some generics from the distro itself.

After I install, and before I rebuild the "world"...I want to use compiler flags specific for the new AMD Bulldozer CPU.

a) Is there a USE flag for the bulldozer specifically that handles the new BD architecture properly?

b) Is this USE flag for Bulldozer also used when using the "genkernel" tools?

c) How is the distro in general doing with build package stability in the build/rebuild process? I guess I'm asking a non-inflammatory question about the build quality of the packages that prevent broken builds of either "world" or larger packages such as LibreOffice.

d) Any massive "gotchas" with Bulldozer and Gentoo and the general source building process? I would assume any gotchas would be Bulldozer generated because of the new architecture, and this question is not intended to impugn Gentoo in any way whatsoever.

Just trying to get my ducks lined up in prep for the port over ahead of time.

Sincerely and respectfully,

Dave

Last edited by dcbdbis on Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:29 am; edited 1 time in total

a, b: you mean C(XX)FLAGS, don't you. AFAIK, not with the currently "stable" gcc-4.5.x, that doesn't even have proper automatic support for Core i7.

c) be more specific, didn't have major problems since the latest png-1.5 "debacle"._________________++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

I have read elsewhere that gcc 2.6.2 has full support for Bulldozer, so you might want to unmask that and use it. There may be a few other packages that you need to unmask as well. Also, if you want all the safe supported CFLAGS for BD, you can use "-march=native". That will match your CPU with what gcc has and use the best flags, so if in the future, they decide to change things, then the newer better flags will automatically be switched to. _________________Nothing to read in this sig. Move along.